And When I Walked Alone
by AnotherPerson5
Summary: Ongoing drabbles, gen for the most part. Might cross over into Biblical/Christian mythology territory as a given.
1. Temptations Rufia, Bartelby

**A/N**: So I wrote this is a one shot on Comment-fic at LJ and decided to do a few minifics/drabbles set in that verse as well as some general ones. Chapter titles will note which.

**A/N 2**: Rufia = The Last Scion

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><p>He tells them, above the screams, that all he ever wanted was to be…righteous, to cradle the truth in his hands and know what it felt like to be justified in his actions.<p>

Rufia skips stones across the water and doesn't notice how they continue onward, bouncing gracefully behind waves as she digs her fingers into the sand in search of another. It's soon, too soon, but word travels slowly when dealing in millennia and her mother is face down on a blanket, humming along to the radio.

"Who are you?"

"Samael."

She rolls her eyes, "That's a lie." then sits with her legs sprawled out and looks at him

"Yes, it is."

"So is that." she returns quickly then frowns, "Wait."

He chuckles, taking a seat beside the young girl. Her shoulder moves as if unconsciously repelled by his presence but otherwise she remains still, watching him closely this dark haired man who wears black and white stripes and whose brown eyes are tinged with red. He fishes into his pocket and removes a small square of bread, biting into it before outstretching it to her

"Hungry?"

She takes it, tosses it ahead of them and watches it change back to stone, flipping once over a wave before disappearing. She tells him she had breakfast with her uncle Bob that her uncle Jay missed because he said something funny to a cop only the cop didn't think it was funny so long story short uncle Jay had three f-wording months of community service before he could babysit her again.

"Totally balls."

When she looks away from the water he's gone and her mother is calling her back.

~*~  
>She watches Rufia at the cliff, biting on her lower lip as her boyfriend presses a tight kiss to her cheek and races forward, leaping off the edge and into the water with a howl broken only by a faint splash. A short movement and she's there beside the young woman<p>

"Are you going to jump?"

"I don't know, looks freaky." She looks away from the next person readying themselves for the leap, "Who are you?"

"Lucy."

Rufia accepts the bottle handed to her, "You're lying."

"Yes."

"You-" she stops, laughs and shakes her head, "you remind me of someone."

"You should jump. I'm sure God would not let you come to any harm."

"Sure, but why test her?"

"Because you can."

Rufia looks at her sharply, brings the bottle to her lips for a sip before muttering, "Well I'd rather not, thanks."

~*~  
>The second coming of christ, the second coming of <em>her<em>, it's too much. The pressure is rising and her mom greeted Metatron like he was an old friend, smiled when Rufia called it a lie even while memories flooded back; memories of strangers who touched her cheek before silently disappearing, of dogs she found lying in the street but began to move beneath her touch.

Here at her old campground with Dewey, Edward and Veronica ("The First Three", Metatron had called them) asleep in the abandoned cabins, she tries to figure it out, piece it together. The city is stretched before her, begging to be saved but only after its destruction which she would lead with open bloody palms.

"I'm sorry."

She twists and there he is.

Him.

"You're different." he tells her, hands in his pockets as he looks up at the night sky, "Then again you humans are always changing, adapting. He killed himself for this world and look where it's headed-to hell. Literally."

"Who are you?"

"If only Azrael had completed his first task, hard to have an end of the world without the last scion."

"This isn't my fault."

"No. It's** God's**. God and his 'plan', planning always our Lord but never thinking." Rufia stiffens when he touches her, tugs her by the jacket to the edge of the slope "Why give up all this? It's a beautiful world, isn't it?"

"Who are you?" she whispers

"The judgment, the deaths the trials he intends to put your people through for a place you've no idea is even worth it; all of it can be prevented if you accept me into your heart. They want to take your world away, Rufia, I want only to know it." _To hold it in my hands_, "Accept me and you will have everything you've ever desired."

She looks away from the city, "And they'll be safe?"

"Yes."

She bends down, picks up a rock and skips it into the night sky. He watches it curve weightlessly and work its way back, the blessed stone tearing its way through his ribcage

"You're lying."

"Bartleby." Satan laughs upon his return, "So close."


	2. Resurrection Songs: Rufia, Jesus

A/N: Warning for death of an animal

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><p>Rufia likes dogs. Dogs like Rufia. A dog is dead in the middle of the street. She lays next to it with tears running down the side of her face and into the shell of her ears, muffling the sound of someone shouting her name into the wind. She's five years old and she's never seen something die, she thinks of Jay reading Harry Potter to her while her mother shouted at a man wearing a red hood in the next room. When he got to the part about Thestrals she didn't understand, didn't understand what it meant about the people who could see them, why it was so sad and why uncle Bob had cleared his throat pointedly and they'd skipped ahead.<p>

She gets it now with a clarity no five year old should have and decides that because she knows why it's died it shouldn't have to. It makes sense with a part of her she'll soon forget to trust the moment she tells this to her best friend who will tell the teacher who will give Rufia a lecture about lying and years later she will wonder if she'd only ever dreamed it.

But for now she sits up, kneeling on the rough street and petting the dog behind its ear and frowning at it like her mother when Rufia refuses to clear her plate.

"It's time to wake up." then like her mother she bribes, "Come on, we'll go for a walk if you do." she scratches its stomach, smiling when its hind leg finally twitches and it lifts its head, standing up and shaking itself off. She lets out an "eww" when dirt and blood finds its way onto her favorite shirt, but forgives the animal instantly when it begins to jog away only to stop and look back, barking impatiently.

Rufia wipes her hands on her jeans and catches up, "Good dog." she grins and skips back to the park where her mother is frozen in front of a man in a long black coat who laughs when Jay mutters something about no clothes in heaven. When he steps forward to pick Rufia up onto his shoulder the black dog growls and sits before her, teeth bared. The stranger, brushes past waving a hand before Bethany can protest and kneeling before the young girl

"Hello old friend." he whispers, petting the animal behind its ear just as she did. There's a scar on the back of his hand, round and frayed along the edges but perfectly centered. She sees it mirrored in his palm when he pulls it away and looks at her, "Have you named him?"

"Rus."

"Why choose that?"

"I don't know," she places a hand on his, Rus's back, a fondness for the animal she's barely known bright in her eyes, "It fits."

"Yes it does." He stares at her and there are words, words he wishes it was the time to say, but it isn't so he can only smile as if it's the punchline of a painful inside joke.

In a way it is.

"I'm sorry." he tells Bethany before he leaves, tears in his eyes for the first time since the first time, "I am so so sorry."


	3. How It Happens: Loki, Bartelby

**A/N**: Loki&Bartelby, "Over many rounds they get into this discussion about whether murder in the name of God is okay..."

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><p>Bartelby never wanted a happily ever after; never wanted to walk into the sunset and for the birds to sing as light shone through him like a prism, reflecting the kaleidoscope of his creators love. Happiness was a construct, after all, a human attempt to cage the transcendent by giving it a name and definition. They didn't understand that by seeking God they lost him, that the closer they came to happiness the further they would find themselves from paradise.<p>

"I pity them." he says, wine circling in the chalice

"What?" Loki raised an eyebrow, "Pity? Them?"

"You're looking at the cloth instead of the threads. Have you ever considered the fact that eons from now they could still be struggling to find what we were created with?"

"Have you considered the fact that you're drunk?"

"Yes," he breaks his first smile of the week

"Good because you are."

"I'm aware."

"and when _you _drink-"

"When I drink I still have the mental clarity to see how eager you are to murder again."

Loki shakes his head and blood is flung into the fire before them, unsurprisingly. It coats him like a second skin, rolling down the back of his neck and flecking his wings. Bartleby can't tear his eyes from it.

"Divine judgment isn't murder," he sings like a familiar tune, lifting his gaze towards the sky to gauge the hours left until sunrise then his voice returning to normal as he looks away from the flames to add, "You know that."

"Do I?"

"Yes, Bartelby, you do." There's a calmness in his tone that only serves to darken the Grigori's

"It seems cruel, to not even offer them a chance, no?" he motions for Loki's cup and refills it, "To give the punishment before the lesson. God bestowed us with what they've been forced to earn and how do we repay him? Disobedience. Giving them our knowledge, knowing them instead of carrying out His will. And yet they are the ones to suffer?"

"They must prove themselves worthy of paradise. It's God's will."

"Why?"

"Because," Loki frowns, "Because…"

"Look to it, my friend, you carry out the punishment for those unaware of being taught. The farmer who burns the henhouse to smoke out the wolf." Loki rubs his forehead and his fingers return crimson, Bartleby watching as he stares at the blood with lips parted, "What if I was caught knowing the flesh of a human, Loki, and another killed me in the name of God? Would you spare him?"

"No," he answers breathlessly, "Your life was not his to claim."

"Let He, who is without sin, cast the stone Loki." Bartleby follows his companions gaze to the sword, forever burning before them, its tip buried into the earth, "Allow your arm to rest."

~*~  
>He watches the sun rise on another day; another day fruitlessly searching for a light he knew existed but could no longer feel. He closes his eyes, missing the days when 'ever after' was enough.<p> 


	4. An Eternity to Wait: Bartelby, Metatron

**A/N**: Set not long after "How It Happens", but on the lighter side of things (kind of, there's a riddle in there and it's kinda dark once you get it).

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><p>Metatron contemplates the excellence that is being an angel in a mortal household with four daughters and three sons, all of whom seem loathe to deny him even the most absurd (he'd asked for 'a bit of meat' and been brought two cows and a barrel of alcohol made upon his request). He is debating whether or not to have them scare up a goat as well when he gets the news.<p>

"Blasphemy," he growls, uncasing his wings and following behind the messenger, "Bartelby I presume."

"Loki actually."

"Oh like there's a difference."

"But isn't Bartelby only a Grigori? Watchers aren't allowed to-"

Metatron laughs, "Oh, how precious. 'Aren't allowed'. You must be new here."

~*~  
>He doesn't even try to look repentant, watching Loki thrash the home he's quite literally just made from scratch.<p>

"Look at him," Bartelby twists around, rolling his eyes at The Voice, "like a child. Don't know how you'll live with him."

"I won't." Metatron quirks an eyebrow, "Live that is."

"Oh," he crosses his arm, regarding the other with amusement, "You're going to get rather dark now, aren't you?"

"I'll have to entertain myself somehow while I await His judgment."

"You've already been judged."

"I know."

The smile vanishes and he clears his throat, "Listen to me and listen to me once, Brother, in the land of questions he who has an answer is not King, but a slave."

"I don't understand."

Metatron's head twitches, a summon, and almost reluctantly takes a step back, feigning a casual shrug, "Well, I wouldn't worry about it, could mean anything could mean everything. You know how good a mood He's been in. Loki!"

The now former angel of death finally notices him, the boulder still in hand as he readies to drop it through the roof again, "Metatron! When you'd get here?"

"Just leaving actually!" he tsks, "And that ladies and gentleman used to run around with a sword that could melt the gates of heaven. One day we'll look back on this and still be unable to laugh." He looks at Bartelby for a reply, but the angel is already running forward waving his arms back and forth and talking Loki down.

_Good luck, _Metatron thinks and leaves them to it.


End file.
